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10 Best Private Search Engines for 2022 (No Logging)

March 10, 2022 By Sven Taylor — 385 Comments
private search engine

This guide aims to be the most in-depth resource available on private search engines. For this 2022 update, we examine the best private search engines, search results censorship, and how to keep your data safe and secure when searching online.

In today’s world, search engines are a necessity to find what you’re looking for online. Unfortunately, however, there are two big problems you will likely encounter:

  1. Search engines that violate your privacy.
  2. Search engines that censor search results.

This private search engines guide will thoroughly examine both of these problems and provide you with the best reliable solutions and alternatives we can find. So let’s begin by examining the first problem with search engine privacy.

The search engine privacy problem

It is sad to say, but most of the big search engines today serve as data collection tools for advertising companies. That’s right, they collect your private data and use it to make money with targeted ads. This is a booming industry where your data ends up in the hands of third parties and you are the product.

Here is the information being collected by some of the larger (not private) search engines:

  1. Source IP address
  2. User agent
  3. Location
  4. Unique identifier (stored in browser cookies)
  5. Search queries

As you may know, the items you enter into a search engine can disclose highly personal information about you. Things like as medical conditions, employment status, financial information, political beliefs, and other private details. This data can be collected, stored, and linked to detailed digital profiles which can even contain your real identity. The only way to ensure that your data is safe is to keep it out of the hands of the data collectors. To do that, you need to use a private search engine.

Search engine censorship in 2022

Many people are getting fed up with online censorship, particularly when trying to find specific information that was previously available. Censorship can take many forms. With search engines today, censorship can come from filtering, manipulating, and/or blocking certain search results from appearing.

Unfortunately, the censorship problem affects many of the private search engines for these two reasons:

  1. Censorship flows downhill. Many of the alternative and private search engines are nothing more than private proxies that deliver the same search results from the big players. This means that when Google and Bing (Microsoft) engage in censorship and search result manipulation, so will your alternative search engine that delivers those same results.
  2. Alternative search engines themselves are also engaging in censorship. Recently the CEO of DuckDuckGo announced that they will “down-rank sites associated with Russian disinformation.” We can see both sides to the question of whether or not to engage in censorship given the geopolitical events of 2022. Nonetheless, this amounts to censorship, which is what many people are trying to avoid.

An exception to this may be with independent search engines that deploy their own crawlers, such as with Mojeek, or Brave Search. Additionally, with Searx, you can select which engines it uses.

So let’s examine some alternative private search engines you can start using today.

The best private search engines

Finding the best private search engine for your needs is a subjective process. Your circumstances and goals are unique, meaning there’s no one-size-fits-all. Things to consider include:

  • Where is the service based?
  • Where does it get its search results?
  • Can you run your own instance?

In a perfect world, a search engine would give you great results while also respecting your privacy. Unfortunately, this isn’t a perfect world. Any of the private search engines in this guide could be the best solution for you. But you will need to test drive the ones that look the best to you to see which is really the best fit. Before we start, there is one issue you need to be aware of:

Metasearch vs search: Most private search engines are technically metasearch engines. While a search engine crawls the internet and gathers its own results, a metasearch engine pulls its search results from other search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yandex.

There are also a few search engines that fall in the middle by deploying their own crawler, but also pulling results from other search engines.

Note: This list is not necessarily in rank order. Choose the best search engine for you based on your own unique needs and threat model.

Here are the best private search engines:

Searx – Open source and uncensored search engine

unfiltered search results

Jurisdiction: Not applicable (open source, not based in any one location)

Search results: Fully customizable! You can choose from a large selection of engines to display results.

Searx is an open source metasearch engine that gathers results from other search engines while simultaneously respecting your privacy. Even better, you control which search engines Searx pulls results from, as well as specifying the categories for search results.

Searx customizability comes in handy since Google has been known to block Searx requests. We haven’t seen a good solution to the problem, but you can avoid these kinds of problems by telling Searx to avoid Google (or any other source that causes problems).

Searx also allows you to run your own instance of the search engine. The drawback with your own instance, however, is that your search results won’t be mixed with other users. Searx is open source and available on GitHub.

Be careful if you use public instances!

Because Searx is open source and freely available for anyone to use, there are a number of different public instances you can utilize. However, just like with Tor nodes, anyone with bad intentions can set up a “rogue” instance and potentially log user activity, as Searx explains here:

What are the consequences of using public instances?

If someone uses a public instance, he/she has to trust the administrator of that instance. This means that the user of the public instance does not know whether his/her requests are logged, aggregated and sent or sold to a third party.

Unfortunately the Searx project does not run an official public instance. They do recommend public instances that are operated by various individuals or entities. But how do you know those instances aren’t logging your search results on their server? You don’t!

For all we know, a public instance might run by an advertising company, or perhaps a domestic or foreign intel agencies, or just some creeps looking to spy on your data. The only way to be sure is to run your own instance.

https://www.searx.me (gives info about the project and list of instances)


MetaGer – An open source metasearch engine with good features

uncensored private search engine

Jurisdiction: Germany

Search Results: In our tests, most Megater search results came from Bing, followed by Scopia and Infotiger, another start-up search engine based in Germany. It also displays some results from Yandex and Yahoo.

MetaGer is an open source metasearch engine based in Germany. It gets search results from Bing, Yandex, Yahoo and others, as well as having its own web crawler. This interesting project started in 1996. It is now operated by a non-profit foundation in Germany called SUMA-EV (Association for Free Access to Knowledge). I tested MetaGer for this guide and found the results to be decent, with some nice features as well:

  1. Every search result shows the source it came from
  2. Search filter options (date, safe search, and language)
  3. Proxy viewing options “open anonymously”
  4. A new News/Politics results type
uncensored search results

MetaGer does a good job of protecting your privacy, as they explain here. MetaGer converts search requests into anonymous queries through a proxy server, which also provides the “open anonymously” viewing option with all results. The service truncates your IP addresses to protect your privacy, although they do pass along user agent info to their search partners. MetaGer does not utilize cookies or any other tracking methods.

For operation stability and security, MetaGer does keep some logs on their own servers, but this data is kept no longer than 96 hours and is automatically erased. MetaGer finances operations from user donations, as well as ads that are served through partner networks, such as Bing. These ads appear at the top of the search results. However, you can get completely ad-free search results by signing up for an MetaGer membership. (Without memberships and personal donations, MetaGer states they would not be able to continue operations.)

MetaGer runs all of its infrastructure on servers in Germany, which is a good privacy jurisdiction with strict data protection laws. The service is completely open source. For those on the Tor network, MetaGer also hosts a .onion site.

You can read more about using MetaGer, as well as their apps, plugins, and features, on their website. We’ll close here with an interesting quote I found on their site (translated from German):

Did you know that according to the Patriot Act, all internet servers and search engines physically located in the jurisdiction of the United States are obligated to disclose any information to the intelligence services? Your personal data is at risk even if the servers and search engines don’t store any information: it is sufficient if the intelligence agencies read and store everything at the internet point of connection. All MetaGer servers are located in Germany.

https://metager.org/ (English)

https://metager.de/ (German)


Mojeek – A crawler-based search engine with more privacy

mojeek private search

Jurisdiction: United Kingdom

Search results: Mojeek uses its own crawler and is not dependent on others!

Unlike some of the other private (meta)search engines, Mojeek is true search engine with its own crawler. According to the Mojeek blog, the service surpassed 4 billion pages indexed in 2021. If you want complete search independence from the corporate data monoliths of Google and Bing, Mojeek offers an interesting proposition.

In terms of privacy, Mojeek does pretty well. It claims to be the “first ever no tracking/privacy orientated search engine” from when it first started. The Mojeek privacy policy details how user data is generally protected:

Mojeek doesn’t implement any kind of specific user tracking, whether that be at the time of visit or subsequently via standard logs, which Mojeek does keep. These logs contain the time of visit, page requested, possibly referral data, and located in a separate log browser information. IP addresses are not recorded, instead the IP address is replaced with a simple two letter code indicating the visitors country of origin. By doing this, Mojeek removes any possibility of tracking or identifying any particular user.

Hopefully Mojeek can continue to improve their search results and one day rival the big players.

https://www.mojeek.com/


Swisscows – A Switzerland-based private search engine

search with privacy

Jurisdiction: Switzerland

Search results: Bing

Swisscows is a Switzerland-based private search engine that does very well with privacy and security. They promise no tracking or data collection, and even have a “Swiss Fort Knox” data center for their server infrastructure. From their website:

  1. have our own servers and do not work with cloud or third party!
  2. have our Datacenter in the Swiss Alps – THIS is the safest bunker in Europe!
  3. have positioned everything geographically outside of EU and US.

In terms of privacy, Swisscows is one of the top choices. You can catch up on their privacy policy here. In testing out Swisscows for this guide, I found it to provide good results, which are primarily sourced from Bing.

Family-Friendly content – One unique aspect of Swisscows is that they are passionate about family-friendly content. As they explain on their about page:

  1. We promote moral values.
  2. We hate violence and pornography.
  3. We promote digital media education.

While some people may not like the fact that Swisscows is censoring some adult content, others may see this as a great feature, especially those who have young children.

Because Swisscows does not pass on user data from search requests, they are unable to effectively monetize their service through ad partners, which means they largely rely on donations and sponsorships to maintain operations (sponsors can get a banner ad at the top of results).

Website: https://swisscows.com


Qwant – A private search engine from France

best search engine privacy

Jurisdiction: France

Search results: Bing

Qwant is a private search engine based in France. Being based in Europe, it is held to data privacy protections that are much stricter than those in the United States and many other countries. Qwant promises to protect user privacy (no tracking) and keep people from getting stuck in the filter bubble.This is all good since Qwant primarily gets its search results from Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Qwant’s privacy policy has changed since we last reviewed their service. Here’s an excerpt that shows their commitment to protect your privacy:

Qwant is committed to protecting your privacy, and that’s at the heart of our philosophy. What you do with Qwant is your privacy and we don’t want to know about it. We don’t keep your search history and we don’t create an advertising profile to target you. With Qwant, you are of course entitled to the rights guaranteed by the European General Data Protection Regulation of April 27, 2016, known as the “GDPR”, but most importantly, we ensure maximum respect for the principles of data minimization and “privacy by design”, i.e., we implement design methods for our services that allow us to collect and process only the data that is strictly necessary. We never try to find out who you are or what you do personally when you use our search engine.

However, when Qwant does not have the answers to your queries, they will pass along pseudonymous data to Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited. Microsoft provides search results, along with “contextual advertising based on the keywords you entered and your geographic region.”

In addition, for purposes of security and reliability of their partner Microsoft’s services, Qwant “may also collect and transfer to this partner your full IP address.” The data transferred to Microsoft is processed under the rules of article 6.1.f of the GDPR, and may be retained in accordance with Bing’s Privacy Policy for a maximum of 18 months.

While the GDPR should protect your data from abuse by Microsoft, if you don’t want Microsoft to know what you are searching for online, you need to be aware that Qwant may share that information with Microsoft under certain circumstances.

Putting that aside, Qwant has good search filtering options. You can filter results by different categories (web, news, social, images, videos, and shopping) as well as by dates. The Qwant homepage includes news stories, trending people, events, and other interest stories. According to their website, Qwant serves 189 million results per month.

Overall, Qwant is a good option for a private search engine, with many features in place to protect user privacy.

https://www.qwant.com/


Brave Search – A new search engine from the Brave browser

brave search

Jurisdiction: United States

Search results: Uses its own crawler!

Although it is still in beta, Brave Search looks quite promising. It is brought to you by the makers of Brave, which is a secure browser with built-in privacy that runs on open-source Chromium. Unlike most of the other search engines in this guide, Brave is using its own search index, rather than relying on Bing or Google.

Here is a brief overview of the Brave Search project from their website:

Brave Search is the world’s most complete, independent, private search engine. By integrating Brave Search beta into its browser, Brave offers the first all-in-one browser / search alternative to the big tech platforms. Brave Search beta is also available in other browsers, at search.brave.com.

Given that Brave Search is relatively new, there is not a lot of information regarding the company’s policies and practices. However, there is this FAQ page that answers some questions. We are excited to see this project develop as it appears to be a strong alternative from a well-regarded organization. We’ll keep an eye on it as things progress.

https://search.brave.com/


DuckDuckGo – Popular private search engine based in the US

anonymous search engine

Jurisdiction: United States

Search results: Primarily Bing, but there are other sources as well.

DuckDuckGo (a.k.a. DDG) is perhaps the most popular private search engine. It’s popularity has grown greatly since our last review. For many people, the first thing to do when installing a new web browser is to set its default search engine to DuckDuckGo.

Based in the United States (not the ideal location from a privacy perspective), DDG was started by Gabriel Weinberg in 2008. It generates search results from over 400 sources including Wikipedia, Bing, and Yahoo. DuckDuckGo has a close partnership with Yahoo (now owned by Verizon).

In March 2022, DuckDuckGo made two interesting announcements in the wake of the situation with Russia and Ukraine.

  1. They will censor and “down-rank” search results that they feel are related to “disinformation” — see the Twitter announcement here.
  2. They will no longer source search results from Yandex, according to reports.

We’re not going to attack DDG for its decision to “down-rank” some websites, because we can see both sides of the argument, and this website is not political. However, we will point out that these actions amount to censorship, which DDG previously denounced with other search engines.

To finance operations, DuckDuckGo generates money through advertisements and affiliate programs, which is explained here. Similar to Google and other search engines, DuckDuckGo will display ads at the top of your searches. DDG has partnered with Amazon and eBay as affiliates.

Searches are saved – DuckDuckGo’s privacy policy reveals that DDG is saving all your search queries:

We also save searches, but again, not in a personally identifiable way, as we do not store IP addresses or unique User agent strings. We use aggregate, non-personal search data to improve things like misspellings.

While it would be great if DDG didn’t save any search information, saving this data without IP addresses or unique User agent strings should protect your privacy just fine.

The history of DuckDuckGo search

In researching the background DuckDuckGo, I uncovered some interesting history. The founder of DDG, Gabriel Weinberg, was also behind a social network called Names Database, which collected the real names and addresses of its users. He then sold Names Database (and all the user data) to Classmates.com for “approximately $10 million in cash” in March 2006.

DuckDuckGo was launched a few years later, in 2008 and was branded as a privacy search engine. It rose to popularity in 2013 following the Snowden revelations. DuckDuckGo remains one of the most popular private search engines to date and is well-regarded in the privacy community. Even if Mr. Weinberg were to sell DDG some day, assuming the company continued to follow existing policies on recording search data, there should be nothing to worry about.

https://duckduckgo.com


YaCy – The decentralized, open source, peer-to-peer search engine

p2p search engine for privacy

Jurisdiction: Not applicable. (Being a decentralized and open-source platform, YaCy does not appear to fall under any particular jurisdiction, similar to Searx.)

Search results: Peer-to-peer crawler model

YaCy is an open source private search engine created in 2004 by Michael Christen. It can run stand-alone or as part of a decentralized peer-to-peer network. Here is a brief description from YaCy’s website:

It is fully decentralized, all users of the search engine network are equal, the network does not store user search requests and it is not possible for anyone to censor the content of the shared index. We want to achieve freedom of information through a free, distributed web search which is powered by the world’s users.

With YaCy, there is no central server, which could be seized or tapped by authorities. Rather, all peers in the network are equal and can be used for crawling the web or in “proxy mode” to index pages for other users. To use YaCy, you need to download the free software on your operating system, available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. There is a demo portal here to test things out.

https://yacy.net/


Ecosia – The search engine that plants trees

ecosia search engine plants trees privacy

Jurisdiction: Germany

Search results: Bing

Ecosia is unique on our list in that it donates a portion of profits to charity and is strictly focused on planting trees. It is based in Germany and claims to be a private search engine. However, some of the things it does make it unsuitable for our main list of truly private search engines.

One issue is that Ecosia collects all search queries and then anonymizes this data after seven days. Another is that they do a fair amount of data collecting through website analytics, including your IP address, browser agent, location, and more.

And one more thing…

Ecosia assigns a Bing tracking ID to every user:

Ecosia also assigns a “Bing Client ID” in order to improve the quality of the search results. This value is a user-specific ID which enables Bing to deliver more relevant search results also based on previous searches. The ID is saved in the Ecosia cookie and retrieved during future visits.

While the “Bing Client ID” can be manually disabled by the user, most people probably are not even aware of it. This is because Ecosia has done a good job burying this information in their privacy policy. To read the full privacy policy, you will need to scroll all the way to the bottom of the privacy page, and then click a light blue “READ MORE” button, which opens up more information.

ecosia tree search privacy

Does Ecosia meet the criteria to be a “private search engine”? Probably not, but it’s still a good alternative to the big search engines, with commendable charity goals.

Main drawbacks:

  • Not a “private search engine” by default
  • Bing ID is assigned to users (but can be disabled)
  • Search queries, with IP address, are saved for seven days

https://www.ecosia.org/


Yandex.com – A search engine in Russia (with censorship)

unfiltered search results

Disclaimer: Yandex is a Russian search engine that also engages in censorship, as we see with most Western-based search engines, such as Google and Bing. However, if there is information that you seek, and Western-focused search engines are of no help, then Yandex.com could be a solution for finding what you need. Proceed with caution!

Operating in Russia, we need to point out that Yandex is legally obligated to censor search results. In fact, as we mentioned in our guide on VPNs for Russia, there is massive censorship that is mandated by the government. This is the other side of the censorship coin.

We have also previously pointed out that there is a growing need to unblock websites in Russia given all the censorship lately. In fact, Russia has been actively blocking websites since 2012 and the are now blocking major social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, as well as international news sites, such as the BBC.

So why discuss Yandex if they also engage in censorship? Answer: If you can’t find what you’re looking for with Western-based search engines, then Yandex may be useful.

https://Yandex.com


These search engines have ad-tech owners

Now let’s look at a few search engines that are at least partially owned by advertising companies.

Why is this important to understand?

Because the business model of advertising companies is to collect as much private data as possible. A “private” search engine could be a massive data collection tool in the wrong hands.

Can an ad-tech company be trusted to guard your personal data while running a “private” search engine?
Can a fox be trusted to guard a hen house?

Proceed with caution.

1. Search Encrypt – A search engine with some big red flags

search engine ads

Search Encrypt is another interesting search engine that claims to offer better privacy by default than DuckDuckGo. Like DuckDuckGo, Search Encrypt uses Bing for search results. Search Encrypt describes the following features on its website:

  • Expiring browsing history: Encryption keys for your searches expire when you are done searching.
  • End-to-end encryption: Searches are end-to-end encrypted using AES-256 and HTTPS/SSL encryption.
  • Privacy-friendly maps search
  • Privacy-friendly video search

While Search Encrypt does have some interesting features, the privacy policy has a few red flags. It begins with:

Search Encrypt does not track search history in any user identifiable way.

This cryptic sentence suggests that Search Encrypt does indeed track search history, but attempts to anonymize the data. Their privacy policy further states:

Additionally, we store aggregated search data to improve product performance, but never store IP addresses or unique user identifiers in connection with such searches in order to ensure that none of the information collected in connection with your search activity is personally identifiable.

This is a pretty convoluted statement. Here are a few takeaways:

  • “Aggregated search data” is being logged and stored.
  • They claim to not store IP addresses “in connection with such searches” – but this does not mean that IP addresses are not getting logged and/or passed on to third parties. Rather, they are merely stating that IP addresses will not be associated with searches. Therefore it appears that IP addresses might be getting logged (another reason to use a VPN).

Search Encrypt also discloses in their privacy policy how they may share data with third parties if you alter the default settings in any way:

In circumstances where you have chosen to alter the default settings, then your personally identifiable information may be shared with third party site operators.

Lastly, it also appears that Search Encrypt may be operating out of the United States. From their Terms page:

Choice of Law and Venue.
This Agreement shall be interpreted and enforced in all respects under the laws of the State of Florida, United States as applicable to contracts to be performed entirely within Florida.

Who’s running the show?

Another question with Search Encrypt is that there isn’t much information about the company. The contact page shows an address in Cyprus and the legal venue is Florida (United States). The developer for the Search Encrypt Firefox extension (no longer listed) is “SearchIncognito” – with a history of other “private search” extensions:

searchincognito

How does Search Encrypt make money?

Like some other private search engines, Search Encrypt makes money through affiliates, as they explain here:

In some circumstances, we may append an affiliate code to certain sites linked to our Search Encrypt product, either directly or through search results delivered to you. In doing so, we may collect a small commission in connection with your activity, but do not pass any of your personally identifiable information to any such third party sites.

This of course could be quite profitable with the right deals and enough users. DuckDuckGo also utilizes affiliates with Amazon and eBay for revenue, in addition to advertisements. (We’ll explain more about how private search engines make money below.)

I reached out to Search Encrypt asking for additional clarification on their data collection and user privacy policies. My emails were not answered.

Main drawbacks:

  • IP address and other data may be collected
  • Data may be shared with third parties if you modify default settings
  • Runs on Amazon servers in the US
  • Non-transparent company

Jurisdiction: Contact address is in Cyprus, legal venue is in the United States (owners in China? below)

https://www.searchencrypt.com/

Update: My suspicions proved to be warranted. An article on Medium has revealed that “Search Encrypt” is basically a Chinese data collection tool for advertising companies.

How a Chinese Company Built a $250 Million Search Hijacking Empire


2. GhostPeek – A clone of Search Encrypt?

It appears that a carbon copy of Search Encrypt has been unveiled, which they are calling “Ghost Peek” and claim to be another “private search engine”.

Someone on reddit did some digging and found the same pattern and ties to China that we saw above with “Search Encrypt”

Ghostpeek, the supposedly “private” search engine, is run by a sketchy shell corporation, which in turn is owned by a personal and mobile data aggregator based in China


3. Startpage – Acquired by a US ad-tech company in 2019

startpage private search

Startpage was previously one of my top recommendations for private search engines. However, news surfaced in October 2019 that Startpage was at least partially acquired by System1 and the Privacy One Group. As described in my article on Startpage and System1, there are some concerning factors to consider:

  • The fact that System1 has acquired a large stake in Startpage.
  • The history and business model of System1, which includes gathering “as much data as possible” and profiling users.
  • The board of directors change at Surfboard Holding BV (parent company of Startpage), to appoint the System1 co-founder and an outside investor.
  • The long delay in alerting the public to these changes.
  • The contradictory business models of System1 and a private search engine.

Choosing the best private search engine is largely about trust, and only you can decide who to trust.

Jurisdiction: Netherlands (officially, but at least partially owned by a US company)

https://www.startpage.com


Private search engine FAQs

Here are some FAQs (frequently asked questions) with regards to private search engines:

  1. How do private search engines make money?
  2. Are US-based search engines safe?
  3. How to keep your searches private
  4. Considerations when choosing a private search engine

How do private search engines make money?

Private search engines make money in three ways: contextual advertisements, affiliates, and donations. Let’s examine each of these revenue streams on their own.

1. Contextual advertisements

Just like with Google and Bing, many private search engines make money by placing advertisements in the search results, usually based on the search terms you entered. The difference between private search engines and Google or Bing is that private search engines should only be serving ads based on your search term, rather than from all other data collection sources (email, browsing, etc.).

Note: Some private search engines pass a truncated (anonymized) version of your IP address to the search partner, in order to serve relevant ads for your general location.

2. Affiliate revenue

Many private search engines make money through affiliate programs. DuckDuckGo is an example of this; they are a member of both the Amazon and eBay affiliate programs:

DuckDuckGo is part of the affiliate programs of the eCommerce websites Amazon and eBay. When you visit those sites through DuckDuckGo, including when using !bangs, and subsequently make a purchase, we receive a small commission.

You may also see “online shopping” options above your search results, which are another form of affiliate revenue. Both Qwant and DuckDuckGo use affiliate “shopping” results as sources of income.

Note: When you buy something through an affiliate link, it never increases the price you pay. Rather, it simply transfers a small percentage of the profits (i.e. a commission) to the affiliate, which in this case is the private search engine.

3. Donations

Private search engines may also make money from donations. Anybody can donate to the project, regardless of whether it is an individual developer, a non-profit organization, or a private for-profit business.

If a search engine does not have other sources of revenue or good advertising deals with partners, donations become very important to ensure continued operations. For example, Swisscows, MetaGer, and YaCy all have donation options.

Are US-based search engines safe?

Choosing a private search engine is all based on your unique needs and threat model. Therefore a private search engine that Bob considers to be safe, may not be adequate for Alice.

With regards to US-based search engines, and any other US businesses that handles (or has potential access) to private data, there are a few things to keep in mind:

  1. The United States has extensive surveillance programs, which are carried out by various branches of government, such as the NSA.
  2. The US has a long history of working with (and forcing) private tech companies to facilitate bulk data collection efforts – see the PRISM program for details. (This raises questions about private search engines that are being hosted on Amazon infrastructure, a large US-based company.)
  3. US companies could be served National Security Letters or other lawful data collection demands, while also being prohibited from disclosing this due to gag orders.

These laws and capabilities essentially give the US government the authority to compel a legitimate privacy-focused company to function as a data collection tool for state agencies.

spying with search engines surveillance

If a privacy-focused business were to be compromised, it would likely happen behind closed doors, without a word (or warning) to the users. This was the case with Lavabit, and rather than comply with the data requests, the founder was basically forced to shut down the business.

As a general rule, RestorePrivacy does not recommend services that are based in the US. Nonetheless, it all depends on your threat model and how much privacy and security you need.

How to keep your searches private

Here are five basic tips for keeping your searches (and data in general) more private.

1. Use a private search engine

Using one of the private search engines in this guide will help keep your data safe from third parties. See the reviews to determine which private search engine best suits your needs.

2. Use a private and secure browser

Just like with search engines, your browser can also reveal lots of private information about you to third parties:

  • Browsing history: all the websites you visit
  • Login credentials: usernames and passwords
  • Cookies and trackers: these are placed on your browser by the sites you visit
  • Autofill information: names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.
  • Metadata, which can be used for tracking and identification (browser fingerprinting)

Many of the private search engines in this guide offer browser extensions to replace the default search engine for your browser. DuckDuckGo has even become listed as an alternative search engine for browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome.

See our guide on secure browsers here.

3. Use a good VPN service

If you use a good VPN service, you won’t have to worry about search engines logging your IP address and location. A VPN will encrypt your traffic for safe transit across the internet, while also replacing your IP address and location with that of the VPN server you’re connected to. There are many other uses for VPN services and they are an important privacy tool, especially since internet providers in many countries are now collecting browsing history.

Below are my top VPN recommendations:

  1. NordVPN: A fast, secure, audited VPN with advanced privacy features and a strict no-logs policy, based in Panama (with a 60% discount coupon).
  2. Surfshark VPN: A no-logs VPN service with a large lineup of privacy and security features, based in The Netherlands.
  3. ExpressVPN – A reliable, secure, and user-friendly VPN service that is based in the British Virgin Islands with a no-logs policy (audited twice).

And you can get more information on our top recommendations of the best VPN services here.

4. Use a good ad blocker

A reliable ad blocker is another important privacy tool since ads have become a major threat to your privacy. Many ads now quietly collect data for third-party advertising networks. Other ads (known as malvertising), actually install malware on your computer or mobile device. The best thing to do these days is to simply block ads and tracking networks.

There are of course many other privacy tools to consider. However, a good private search engine, a secure browser, a reliable VPN, and a safe ad blocker are the top priorities for basic digital self defense.

5. Log out!

Lastly, whenever possible, stay logged out of Big Tech accounts (Gmail, YouTube, Amazon, etc.) when surfing the web, since their trackers will record your browsing activity and link this to your data profile.

Another option is to use one browser for staying logged into various accounts, but then use a separate browser for general browsing activity (this is known as browser compartmentalization).

Considerations when choosing a private search engine

Here are some things to consider when looking for the best search engine for privacy:

  • Search results – Some search engines may do well in the privacy category, but they don’t return very good results. Some will actively engage in censorship, or display censored search results from Google or Bing.
  • Privacy – Consider what information the search engine is logging, as well as the data that may be passed off to third parties and search partners (such as Bing).
  • Jurisdiction – Jurisdiction is an important factor to consider because it ultimately affects your data and privacy. Services based in the US, for example, are subject to the Patriot Act, National Security Letters, and may also be forced to collect user data without being allowed to disclose anything (due to gag orders).
  • Features – Some private search engines offer useful features, such as anonymous viewing (via proxy servers), search result filtering options, plugins, extensions, and more.
  • Mobile apps – More than a year ago, Google reported that they process more search requests from mobile devices than they do from desktops. We live on our mobile devices, so a search engine that offers a mobile app for your specific device could be a big benefit.
  • Trust – Trust is difficult to quantify and measure, but it’s a very important consideration. When considering the trust factor, you may want to look at the history of the company and the individuals behind it.

Finding the best search engine for your needs is a subjective process, and there’s no single “best private search engine” that applies to everyone. Check out our reviews, the test drive a few different options to find the best fit for you.

This private search engines guide was last updated on March 10, 2022.

About Sven Taylor

Sven Taylor is the founder of RestorePrivacy. With a passion for digital privacy and online freedom, he created this website to provide you with honest, useful, and up-to-date information about online privacy, security, and related topics. His focus is on privacy research, writing guides, testing privacy tools, and website admin.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Stephen Rowland

    May 23, 2022

    Hello,
    I came here to find out about the Brave browser and found out so much more info!! Thanks!
    I saw your reviews of VPNs but did not see Namecheap VPN. Is that one (being quite cheap) just a browser proxy, which you called another VPN, that is not doing as much as advertised? It works well for Netflix which is my main purpose, but I am getting more concerned about privacy, so I wondered if it is really private.
    Thank you!

    Reply
    • Sven Taylor

      May 23, 2022

      Hi Stephen, we have a Namecheap VPN review here — but it is now called “FastVPN”.

      Reply
  2. otropogo

    May 13, 2022

    Yesterday my Opera Browser updated itself, and now when I try to access Duckduckgo.com in VPN mode, as I’ve done since adopting Opera for private browsing, Opera is blocked with a “tunnel error message”, no matter how many times, or how long I try. When I toggle VNP mode off, the search is carried out, and I can toggle VPN mode back on and open the hits. Can anyone make sense of this for me?

    Reply
    • Sven Taylor

      May 13, 2022

      I would strongly recommend you completely avoid the “Opera VPN” feature as this appears to be a data collection tool based on our previous research and reading through Opera’s own privacy policy. Additionally, this is not even a “VPN” at all, but rather a browser proxy with a dubious data collection policy, as we explained in the Opera VPN review. This is the exact opposite of privacy. A reputable paid VPN service would be a much better idea.

      Reply
      • BoBeX

        May 14, 2022

        Hi otropogo,

        I hope you find value in the RP articles Sven recommends.
        If you have the time, remember there’s heaps of valuable information here.
        The “Privacy Essentials” articles are all gathered towards the top of the home page.

        G.L,

        BoBeX

        Reply
        • Mike

          May 17, 2022

          @otropogo the Opera browser is a privacy nightmare itself. You might want to switch it for another browser since the company that owns Opera Software. is a Chinese IT firm. That means there’s a strong likelihood your data is being mined by China’s Communist government. Firefox and Brave are excellent choices or, if you still want an Opera-style experience, I suggest Vivaldi.

          https://www.reuters.com/article/us-opera-software-m-a-china-idUSKCN0XI1GN

  3. Anonymous

    May 11, 2022

    Whoogle Search;

    “Get Google search results, but without any ads, javascript, AMP links, cookies, or IP address tracking. Easily deployable in one click as a Docker app, and customizable with a single config file. Quick and simple to implement as a primary search engine replacement on both desktop and mobile.”

    https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search

    https://pypi.org/project/whoogle-search/

    Reply
    • Mike

      May 22, 2022

      The problem is, like Startpage, Whoogle is for Google searches. Google is politicizing their products, including their signature search engine.

      Reply
  4. Mx. Random

    May 8, 2022

    I wonder if DDG censoring misinfo has to do with them being reliant on Bing (and advertisers) search results. I’m guessing whatever is censored on Bing is also censored on DDG. Also, isn’t every search engine censored to some extent?

    I find it especially strange that some of the people calling out DDG’s censorship would jump ship to Yandex and gladly accept their censorship in return. I’m pretty sure Yandex censors a lot more stuff than DDG or Bing, and the people who want “uncensored” results really just want their personal biases confirmed.

    Yandex acting as part of Russia’s “Great Firewall” is far worse than DDG censoring what they see as misinfo. From my experience, I still see a lot of news from the left and right on DDG. And the down-ranking of RT is definitely there. Great write-up Sven! You should check out Whoogle.

    Reply
    • BoBeX

      May 12, 2022

      @Mx.Random. I agree with your thinking and think your comments are sensible

      Reply
    • Mike

      May 22, 2022

      @Mx. Random Let me put it to you this way: The Russian government has little reason to try to identify me or even consider me a threat since I live so far away. Therefore, any information they collect on me would be worthless.

      Reply
      • Mx. Random

        May 22, 2022

        @Mike So you would still use Yandex even though they participate in nation-state level censorship? You should start using Baidu then.

        In all seriousness: the issue is that Yandex is legally obligated by the Russian govt to censor all search results criticizing the Kremlin. They don’t down-rank search results like DDG or Bing; they outright remove it. Searching anything opposing the Russian govt would either give you propaganda or something completely unrelated.

        Yes, the Russian govt may not be able to arrest you. But they are able to arrest ordinary Russian citizens who oppose Putin and/or the war in Ukraine. And considering how popular Yandex is over there, they’re effectively a tool for Russia to spread propaganda and stifle free speech.

        Reply
        • Sven Taylor

          May 23, 2022

          Note that “down-ranking” can basically function the exact same as removal. If you can’t find what you’re looking for due to censorship and search result manipulation, the end result is the exact same.

          So the question is what flavor censorship would you prefer? From what I have seen, it is easier to find censored information when using Yandex than any search engine that sources from Bing or Google. So ultimately, use the search engine that works best for you, and depending on what you are searching for, this can vary for each person.

  5. D. Scott Secor

    May 7, 2022

    That DDG is even listed as a secure search engine calls the entirety of this review into question! DDG is about as “secure” as StartPage and other such Ad-tech surveillance engines.

    You also neglected to mention OneSearch, although it is now owned by Yahoo/Verizon. The mobile phone version is a joke, however.

    That Yippy now redirects to DDG is another travesty, although yippyinc.com directs you to Yippy corporate.

    Please try to keep up!

    Reply
  6. James

    May 3, 2022

    Google appears to be still spying on DuckDuckGo. I’m doing some plumbing home repair and did a search for a particular plumbing component. An hour later I was watching Youtube and a video suggestion about that particular component came up. To say the least, I’m irked.

    Reply
  7. Mark

    April 28, 2022

    Has anyone evaluated Freespoke search engine?

    Reply
  8. Seaglass

    April 25, 2022

    2022 04 25: SwissCows is OUT. They blocked me from finding X22 Report on Bitchute so I wondered if it was X22 or Bitchute and tried again with just Bitchute and it was Bitchute that Swisscows censored me from because it suspected violence and pornographie. Bottom line = SwissCows censors. Bastards.

    Reply
    • will wheaton

      May 8, 2022

      Swisscows as a whole is down for months now, so it seems.

      Reply
  9. Scott H

    April 25, 2022

    You left out OneSeach a very good private search engine that I’ve use on my Mac for several years and I can highly recommend

    Reply
  10. BoBeX

    April 17, 2022

    Hi Sven and RP Community,

    I am interested in Google Dorking and am currently learning about the topic.

    My reading of the above is that there is limited options to use a private search engine that uses Google search.
    In article it is discussed that searX can be blocked by Google.
    The other recommendations derive there results from Bing (mostly) or have their own crawlers.

    I am after the power of Google search and the ability to filter using parameters and arguments.

    Questions:

    – Does Bing search have an equivalent to Google Dorks?
    – If so is Bing’s crawling as deep as Google; and also,
    – If so would any one recommend dorking on Bing?

    – Is passing a query to an intermediate search site that uses an upstream search engine the equivalent to passing the query directly to the upstream engine? (Including the parameters)

    If anyone in the community could offer insight this would appreciated!

    Regards,

    BoBeX

    –

    Reply
  11. shr

    April 7, 2022

    Hi Sven
    I’ve two quarries about SearX search.

    1) If I enable ‘autocomplete’ in configuration setting with google, is there any privacy risk in browsing ?

    2) If I enable ‘safe search’ in configuration setting, is there any privacy risk ?
    Is it the Google’s safe search which searx using ?

    Regards.

    Reply
  12. Crystal

    April 5, 2022

    Hey Sven, I’m using a modified version of Firefox and unless I’m using Incognito mode, youtube cookies and grammarly (extension) cookies are always set in my browser despite everything I could do to block them. Nothing I have tried works.

    Can you shed some light on this and why this is happening, and why even disabling cookies from these sites doesn’t work?

    Reply
    • BoBeX

      April 7, 2022

      @Crystal,
      On cookies, I find it easiest and most convenient to allow standard cookies for the session and set the browser to delete all on exit.
      RP has a great article discussing the permissions apps request (That I believe this is relevant to extensions). It is the Android guide. (I know of Grammerly but have not used it)
      CCleaner is a great tool (I have only used on Windows) to clean up your browsers.
      I would also forward to you the concept of ‘browser segmentation’ which is easily Googled (or pick your search engine.)
      GL

      Reply
  13. Stridaden

    April 2, 2022

    Ecosia not exactly privacy search engine, anyway while ago as noted on easylist, Ecosia added some adblock annoyance stuff on their search engine:

    https://github.com/easylist/easylist/pull/11544

    https://github.com/easylist/easylist/pull/11545

    Reply
  14. Mike

    March 31, 2022

    Google search will highlight “highly cited” sources (i.e. play favorites) and engage in even more censorship with their search engine.

    https://9to5google.com/2022/03/31/google-search-highly-cited-label/

    Reply
  15. Mike

    March 30, 2022

    Instead of using SearX, it would be advisable to use SearXNG instead. SearXNG is a fork of SearX but adds some improvements SearX didn’t have. Plus a lot of the SearX instances I have used are down or no longer maintained. Privacy Tools, for example, used to have a SearX instance but it is no longer available.

    https://docs.searxng.org/

    Public instances you can use can be found here:

    https://searx.space/

    Reply
  16. Mike

    March 30, 2022

    As if there weren’t enough privacy-oriented search engines, this one might have got it right. According to Fast Company, Private.sh is designed to:

    “[M]inimize data collection by encrypting search terms locally on your computer. It then sends the information through a proxy server to Gigablast, its search provider, which decrypts the query, reencrypts the search results, and sends them back to be decrypted by the browser again. That, in turn, prevents the search engine from knowing anything about you, including your IP address.”

    This as opposed to using Gigablast proper who commits to not to share its search logs with any party and delete them “on a regular basis.” So Private.sh is a proxy for Gigablast like Startpage is a proxy for Google. However, Private.sh is owned and operated by Private Internet Access that is owned by the advertising company Kape. Despite the PIA link, Private.sh might be a good (if not the best) choice when it comes to unbiased search results without the tracking.

    https://private.sh/

    Reply
  17. User

    March 27, 2022

    Wrong site name, it is just rt.com … but EU and UK have “by law” blocked the RT site in retaliation for Putin’s finally saying “Enough!” to NATO’s continual advance eastwards in Europe, despite NATO and EU promising not to do so in return for Russia agreeing to German reunification. Do some research using a non-censored search engine. DDG is no longer uncensored, according to DDG’s own MD (as Mike mentioned above)!

    Reply
    • Mike

      March 29, 2022

      For searches regarding Russian news sources, I have found Yanex and Metager to be very good choices. Presearch might be too but I have not used them for that purpose yet.

      Reply
      • Mike

        March 30, 2022

        Correction, Yandex not Yanex.

        Reply
  18. Mike

    March 25, 2022

    Someone on this page suggested Presearch as an alternative to DuckDuckGo. I have tried for a few days and, so far, It is pretty good! It is an open-source, decentralized meta search engine like Metager and SearX. Presearch also has a privacy browser available for Android and iOS.

    https://www.presearch.org/

    Reply
  19. GT

    March 24, 2022

    Congratulations to Sven Taylor for providing an excellent site which is up to date and easy to understand. Also great links for further tweaking. I’ll be back!

    Reply
  20. Ronnie

    March 20, 2022

    Hi Sven, great article. I use Brave with a VPN. In the Brave settings there is a setting to toggle on “index other search engines” What would turning this on do? Cheers in advance from Australia.

    Reply
    • Mike

      March 25, 2022

      @Ronnie No idea. Brave does have a community forum you can participate in and I am sure ask questions like this. If you do, could you post a follow-up message and let us all know?

      https://community.brave.com

      Reply
  21. Michael

    March 20, 2022

    DDG is out. Presearch anyone? Check it out! A user, not affiliated.

    Reply
  22. Elaine Whiteside

    March 19, 2022

    Thanks for all the research and information you provided. I was using DDG browser and search on my Samsung phone and DDG search on my IPad now I’m disappointed in them and ‘searching’ for freedom from censorship – which brought me to this article. I am very disappointed in the sell outs who decide what is or isn’t “disinformation” and I wish my voice were important enough they’d listen when I remind them they are themselves being lied to by the very liars who started the “disinformation” hoax in the first place. It’s maddening to see otherwise intelligent people falling for this stupidity. They’ve either mindlessly obeyed or they’ve been threatened into submission – and if that is the case, then that should be sufficient enough warning for why they need to escape the puppet masters no matter what.

    Reply
    • Annoyed

      April 28, 2022

      Same here. Still using DDG but searching for a replacement. I still have a keen mind and prefer to decipher the wheat from the chaff myself.

      Reply
  23. Shoshi Herscu

    March 19, 2022

    Excellent article. Shared. Thank you.

    Reply
  24. Mike

    March 18, 2022

    @Sven with regards to Searx.me and the potential problems with it’s public instances you outline above, how about you all start your own Searx instance? It would be a good way to help promote this site and people would use it knowing that your group would not engage in any potential shinanegans. If not, perhaps you could rank instances by privacy policy?

    Reply
    • Sven Taylor

      March 18, 2022

      Hi Mike, I think that is a good idea. I will look into hosting and the implications of that. Thanks for the tip!

      Reply
      • Mike

        March 18, 2022

        @Sven You’re welcome! I have come to find out, last year Searx was forked and a new version known as SearXNG is available. It may be better than the original.

        https://docs.searxng.org/

        Reply
  25. Will Wheaton

    March 18, 2022

    So, how is yandwx privacy policy?

    Reply
    • Mike

      March 18, 2022

      For some reason, my browser is unable to access Yandex’s privacy policy. Can you read it and let us all know what you think?

      Reply
      • Will Wheaton

        March 18, 2022

        Yeah i cant too,nit wont load. Maybe trying with different locations helped

        Reply
  26. Canadian

    March 15, 2022

    Yandex is probably the least censored search engine if you want to actually find what you are looking for. That’s what this guy found out:

    https://michaelsuede.substack.com/p/search-engine-censorship-test-results?s=r

    Reply
    • Miss

      March 19, 2022

      Wow, excellent article, Canadian. I tried some sample searches and had great results. I just don’t know that I’m comfortable with a russian search engine??? Also, thanks Sven for doing all the legwork! Anyone familiar with Privacy wall?

      Reply
  27. phil mcavity :-)

    March 15, 2022

    Shame on DDG. Is it possible to trust DDG on any of its claims now.

    Taking political sides and virtue signalling seems to be the thing at the moment when it comes to services (virtual or otherwise) – usually done quite ignorantly of facts and circumstances and hypocritically in some cases and delivering little/nothing of value to resolve matters. Depressing it is.

    Another example being gnudb.org recently. https://ru.gnudb.org/ and https://gnudb.org/ … why ! Yes it’s just a CDDB service page, but it is part of the ignorance and hypocrisy problem in our opinion and shows how pervasive that it is across society.

    We too will have to resolve to find another search engine to DDG that will be transparent, true and steadfast to protecting privacy and standing against censorship.

    Peace and best wishes to all the innocent people caught up on all sides. Remember, though there are people across the world caught up in conflict and oppression and only one is receiving attention. God bless.

    Reply
    • Mike

      March 17, 2022

      I agree completely. It is not up to tech oligarchs to determine what is and is not the truth. The average person is able to figure it out for themselves and can find out if the information they have learned about is wrong or correct.

      I remember not too long ago Gabriel Weinberg bragging on Twitter how DuckDuckGo did not manipulate search results. Now they do. Shame on him and even Mozilla for politicizing their Firefox browser. Shame on any tech company that decides to politicize their product(s).

      https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/mozilla-firefox-removes-russian-search-providers-over-misinformation-concerns/

      Reply
  28. Joe

    March 14, 2022

    Qwant few weeks ago and DuckDuckGo just as today, deleted any results related to Russian news (like RTnews).
    Meaning they are under political influence. And apparently DDG stated before they wouldn’t change their results. But they just did.
    I’ll try to find again another private search engine..

    Reply
    • Tracked

      March 15, 2022

      I used Brave for a few months, until we noticed my activity being logged like you’d expect a bot to do.

      Reply
      • Will Wheaton

        March 17, 2022

        Brave logs your activities?

        Reply
        • Crystal Clear

          March 21, 2022

          Yes, as a tester, I typed rtnews.com into the brave browser/search engine and it’s the results don’t come up. Brave appears to be compromised as well as I’m reading on other threads.

      • User

        March 27, 2022

        It is optional (and apparently anomymised). and notified as an option when you downloaded Brave originally Within Brave browser, choose Settings, Security and Privacy and turn off the options you don’t want.

        Reply
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